The star of many a board game night, Settlers of Catan is a series to which I am deeply devoted. And like many a magnificent obsession, Settlers is expensive. Consider the staggering initial cost of $50 for the board game. If the basic hexes of civilization-building no longer seem enough, there is an entire empire of expansions and specialty games designed almost specifically to gleefully gouge your bank account. Not enough? Purchase the $4.99 iPhone app. Still not enough? Reconsider your obsessions, or at least go with some variety and purchase another German powerhouse, Alhambra.

For those of us stuck with Hoover flags rather than a bulging wallet, Flickr user Sean_st provides some inspiration: a homemade Settlers of Catan set! Displaying some serious DIY initiative, Sean_st crafted his own endearingly handsome board largely using materials one could find at your average home improvement store. The pieces were hand-carved from soapstone and alabaster, and each aesthetically-pleasing hexagon was carefully cut from floor tile, then inked. For the resource cards, a regular deck of playing cards was simply re-appropriated into the Settlers standards of brick, wool, lumber, grain, and ore.

You can make your own gleefully unlicensed incarnations of board games, and out of cheap, recession-friendly materials. Improve your whittling skills. Take advantage of the cuttlebone: famous as a calcium supplement for birds, a cuttlebone also makes for a perfect malleable substance due to its high concentration of aragonite. Or, to take after my eight-year-old self, spend a lazy Sunday with some scissors, sturdy paper, and markers. Though my Calvin and Hobbes: Super Snow-Goon Challenge never took off — a missed opportunity, Watterson! — my brother and I still had a great time with it.